A surveillance system for detecting the occurrence of a particular action or event has been regarded as the most crucial part in the research field based on person tracking. This is because, as the society gets more developed and more complicated, safety for individuals and facilities is becoming very important not only in public places but also in private places. Especially, as the modern society gets to be more information-oriented, unmanned, automated and computerized, warning levels on problems with the safety concerning people and businesses as well as problems with the safety and security concerning properties have risen. To address these problems, a lot of efforts have been made to protect and manage individuals and business properties. Moreover, the importance and application range of security is now growing, e.g., from major facilities and government and public offices to schools, companies, homes and the like, and thus, the importance of a surveillance system and the need for developing such system have been recognized.
Such surveillance systems are categorized into: an video surveillance system which uses a CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) camera or a PC (Personal Computer) camera; a network surveillance system which utilizes a network camera to transmit images to a computer at a high speed to allow a user to easily monitor them on his or her mobile phone, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or PC; and an IR (Infrared) surveillance system which is more useful at night time. Among them, the video surveillance system using a CCTV camera or a PC camera has been known as the most effective surveillance means, because, unlike other surveillance systems serving as a countermeasure, it can actively identify an intruder after the incidence of intrusion or destruction, can locate intrusion or an illegal act in advance and can record and store important information for later use.
The video surveillance system using a CCTV camera or a PC camera can not only identify an object, e.g., a person, as described above, but also can track a movement or path of the object.
A general object tracking system using a CCTV tracks an object within a single CCTV area, and also, tracks an object moving to another CCTV area based on visual characteristics or location information of the object. For example, if a person moves from a CCTV area to another CCTV area, the former CCTV transfers object-related information, e.g., the height, hair color, clothing, moving direction, velocity of the person and the like, to the latter CCTV, thereby tracking the person continuously.
However, one shortcoming of the conventional object tracking system using a CCTV is that it cannot uniquely identify an object.